Page 4667 - Week 11 - Wednesday, 19 October 2011
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MR SPEAKER: Stop the clocks, thank you.
Mr Seselja: You have just warned Mr Coe for responding to Ms Gallagher saying, “You are a disgrace.” If you are going to allow the Chief Minister, who is defending the indefensible, to be hurling abuse across the chamber at us, then you should be calling her to defend herself. This is a minister who is defending the indefensible. We should not be the ones being warned for it. She is calling us a disgrace; we will respond. She is a disgrace and she deserves to be brought to account.
MR SPEAKER: There is no point of order. There are two things. Mr Coe has interjected numerous times today and I have called him four or five times already and asked him to tone it down.
Mr Seselja: On that point of order—
MR SPEAKER: Order! I have not finished, Mr Seselja. I will call you in a moment. The other thing is that I did not hear the Chief Minister’s comment because I was in the process of warning Mr Doszpot, who I had just asked not to interject any further. He immediately interjected again. He does not leave me with a lot of choice, I am afraid.
Mr Seselja: On the point of order, on several occasions today the Chief Minister has quite hysterically attacked the opposition. She has called us pathetic and a disgrace. We understand that she was defending the indefensible, but we should be entitled to respond when we have got a Chief Minister hurling abuse.
Mr Corbell: On the point of order, Mr Speaker, there is no entitlement to respond in the standing orders. You and members in this place know that all interjections are highly disorderly. Obviously there is a level of banter and cut and thrust across the chamber during question time. Every member of the opposition is now on a warning because of their behaviour today. The only people that need to reflect on what has occurred today are those opposite.
MR SPEAKER: Mr Smyth, on the point of order.
Mr Smyth: Thank you, Mr Speaker.
MR SPEAKER: We are not starting a debate here, by the way.
Mr Smyth: There are a number of standing orders that relate to this. Most of the problem arises from the violation of standing order 42 by most of the ministers, who direct their comments directly at the opposition. Out of courtesy, they should be speaking to you, as is the form of the house. It is a form that they disregard. They seek your shelter when they do not like it, but they do not abide by the rules themselves.
If the members opposite would then look at standing order 118(a) and 118(b), they would see that standing order 118(a) says that all their answers “shall be concise and directly relevant to the subject matter of the question”. Very rarely are they. Standing
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